Jumping from 8bits microcontroller to 32bits

This is an old news, but still relevant. Last year ARM developed the smallest ARM microcontroller even developed. It uses only 12K gates, for comparison the world’s first microprocessor developed in 1971 (Intel 4004) used about 2.5K gates.

This new microcontroller is called Cortex-M0 and is arriving in the marketing this year.

More info:

http://www.edn-europe.com/smallestlowestpowerarmcoreever+article+2828+Europe.html

How the new I2C subsystem works?

This post explains how the new Linux I2C subsystem works:

http://www.embedded-bits.co.uk/?tag=struct-i2c_driver

Getting started to HCS08 BDM programming

I decided to reprogram my wash machine. Then after my wife used the machine for the first time I opened it and realized it uses a Freescale MC9S08AW16 microcontroller.

Now I got some sample of this uC and will learn how to use BDM interface to program it. Fortunately I found a nice site with tips about how to program it:

http://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/phy4d6/MCU/MC9S08/MC9S08QG8%20Getting%20Started.htm

Testing RDS protocol by hand

This guy did a very nice research about FM RDS protocol:

http://www.anotherurl.com/library/rds.htm

This other project uses a more practical approach:
http://www.g.laroche.free.fr/english/hardware/RDS_USB_ATmega32.html

Understanding I2C protocol

This material is a great source of information about I2C protocol:

http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/devicedoc/i2c.pdf

MicroSD WiFi with Linux support

I like Motorola A1200 too much, in fact I think it was the first Linux cell phone released at many countries. This cell phone has some drawback as missing WiFi and GPS support.

But at least the WiFi problem could be solved using this microSD card:
http://www.spectec.com.tw/sdw823.htm

This microSD card uses a WiFi chip developed by a Japanese company called KeyStream. Hopefully this company was acquired by Renesas and it release it Linux driver as OpenSource:
http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Renesas_KeyStream_Wi-Fi_Driver_for_Linux

I didn’t test it until now, but I am considering to buy one to test it on my A1200 cell phone.

NMEA sentences explained

In this site you will find some NMEA sentences explained:

http://aprs.gids.nl/nmea/

Atmega8 parallel cables for programming

This site has many information about supported parallel cables:

http://my.opera.com/CrazyTerabyte/blog/2007/10/26/first-contact-with-atmega8-microcontroller-part-2

Installing Babylon dictionaries on Ktranslator

Currently I use Ubuntu as main operating system, it is based on Gnome, but I was missing a great software when I was using KDE few years ago. This is Ktranslator a great translator software developed by a Brazillian guy.

Using Ktranslator you just select the word you want to translate and press Ctrl, then will appear a pop-up showing the translation.

Hopefully there is Ktranslator on Ubuntu repository:
$ sudo apt-get install ktranslator

Now you need to install dictionaries, we can use a free dictionary, but Babylon dictionary is more complete. Then first download BGL files (Babylon_English_Portuguese.BGL and Babylon_Portuguese_English_dic.BGL), I will not point you to site where you will find it, just search on google, you will find a page with many BGL files.

Now you need to convert it to .dic, first install the converter:
$ sudo apt-get install dictconv

Now execute the converter tool:
$ dictconv -o Babylon_English_Portuguese.dic Babylon_English_Portuguese.BGL

Remove some unused characters:

$ cat Babylon_English_Portuguese.dic | sed 's/\$[0-9][0-9]*\$\t/\t/' > Babylon_English_Portuguese_novo.dic

Now convert it to Startdict format, first install stardict tools to get to converter:
$ sudo apt-get install stardict-tools

Then run the converter:
$ /usr/lib/stardict-tools/tabfile Babylon_English_Portuguese_novo.dic

It will create 3 files:

Babylon_English_Portuguese_novo.dict.dz
Babylon_English_Portuguese_novo.idx
Babylon_English_Portuguese_novo.ifo

This is time to run ktranslator application, it will ask to configure the directory. Then choose an intuitive name as Babylon_English_Portuguese and press Next. Now select Stardict format and browser to the directory where you place the above files.

Ktranslator will filter other files, you will see only the “Babylon_English_Portuguese_novo.ifo”, select this one and complete the instalation.

Now you can select any word and press Ctrl to get it translated instantaneously.

Source: This page was very useful
http://www.vivaolinux.com.br/dica/Convertendo-os-dicionarios-do-Babylon-para-o-Stardict

Getting information about your v4l device

You can use the “v4l2-ctl” command to get information about your device:

$ v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 --all -L
Driver Info:
	Driver name   : pwc
	Card type     : Logitech QuickCam Notebook Pro
	Bus info      : usb-0000:00:1d.0-2
	Driver version: 655372
	Capabilities  : 0x05000001
		Video Capture
		Read/Write
		Streaming
Format Video Capture:
	Width/Height  : 160/120
	Pixel Format  : YU12
	Field         : None
	Bytes per Line: 240
	Size Image    : 28800
	Colorspace    : Unknown (00000000)
Video input : 0 (usb)
Video Standard = 0x00000000
                     brightness (int)  : min=0 max=128 step=1 default=64 value=63
                       contrast (int)  : min=0 max=64 step=1 default=0 value=50
                     saturation (int)  : min=-100 max=100 step=1 default=0 value=0
             auto_white_balance (bool) : default=0 value=1
                       red_gain (int)  : min=0 max=256 step=1 default=0 value=128
                      blue_gain (int)  : min=0 max=256 step=1 default=0 value=128
                          gamma (int)  : min=0 max=32 step=1 default=0 value=9
       shutter_speed_(exposure) (int)  : min=0 max=256 step=1 default=200 value=227
              auto_gain_enabled (bool) : default=1 value=1
                     gain_level (int)  : min=0 max=256 step=1 default=0 value=-5
error 22 getting ctrl Save User Settings
error 22 getting ctrl Restore User Settings
error 22 getting ctrl Restore Factory Settings
                    colour_mode (bool) : default=0 value=1
                   auto_contour (bool) : default=0 value=1
                        contour (int)  : min=0 max=63 step=1 default=0 value=-1
         backlight_compensation (bool) : default=0 value=0
                    flickerless (bool) : default=0 value=0
                noise_reduction (int)  : min=0 max=3 step=1 default=0 value=1

In order to use this program you need to install the ivtv-utils package:

$ sudo apt-get install ivtv-utils